To clarify, that video of Noah is very relevant to life in general, and probably to Ozil's life in particular too, I just mean as to why there was a problem with the picture.

It's the dumbest thing to do from Ozil. Dumb as hell. Had Turkey had a 'regular' president, democratic, this wouldn't have gone anywhere. The usual crew of extremist would complain, but people like that complain about everything all the time. It wouldnt have been an actual issue. The issue is that it's Erdogan. On the run up to a WC, representing Germany.

The excuse of separating the "person" of the president from what he does (Or how it was he said it) is weak and speaks of total misunderstanding. Ozil should have known better to do it at another time, if he so wanted to.

Oh, wait, Turkey is changing its policies and orienting itself towards Russia and the east after waiting 50 years for EU membership and Erdogan ordered Russian S-400 instead of American Patriot systems so Western (US controlled) Media has to portray him as the evil now after years of sucking up to him.

_________________

@Unique wrote:i came home drunk last night and found my wife in bed with a black guy.

Many reasons. I could tell you, but you're trying to bullshit your way along your line of inane reasoning a bit down in your post, so I'm just gonna follow the smell of said bullshit:

Oh, wait, Turkey is changing its policies and orienting itself towards Russia and the east after waiting 50 years for EU membership

Ok first of all, they didn't wait 50 years for EU membership. They weren't remotely interested in EU membership during the years of the military dictatorships, and they weren't interested during many of the regimes that got removed through military coups. They waited a couple of years, during which they were admittedly repeatedly insulted by European conservative politicians, but you really can't join the EU when you erode the separation of church and state and jail thousands of journalists.Thousands.

and Erdogan ordered Russian S-400 instead of American Patriot systems so Western (US controlled) Media has to portray him as the evil now after years of sucking up to him.

That really is not the problem, and you're getting confused now. They ordered S-400s instead of Patriots because they had to suck up to Putin after Erdogan turned the country into an autocracy because Western governments wouldn't back what Erdogan was doing.

Also the media didn't just randomly change tune on Erdogan, when you read about his past, or read interviews with former allies, you can't help but notice the man drastically changed. He started his career in politics as a moderate conservative reformer with liberal economic ideals. This is not how he is now running the country. It's a cleptocracy with a theocratic spin to it. Turks are scared shitless because they're used to liberty and freedom, which they are now rapidly losing if they're not sycophants.

I'm also really tired of the "western controlled media"-BS, the media in the Western World is not homogeneous, and it is not controlled. It's the old autocratic meme of "if we have propaganda, they must too" that people from the former Soviet Union, and other, more recent dictatorships love to believe in to make themselves feel better about their current state of affairs. Have you ever actually engaged with the whole breadth of "Western Media"? If they're controlled by the governments, the governments are doing a shit job. There isn't a single day without "the media" f*cking ripping into the government.

I'm also not willing to be bullshitted into this all being one massive con-job. Neither will most Germans. Two of my best mates have Turkish roots, probably about a quarter of all my friends do. Just because you've read some BS on Infowars or some weird-ass private forum about some grand conspiracy doesn't make it true. The broad strokes of media reporting actually are true.

- Erdogan is cleansing his bureaucracy of dissidents- He is arresting countless journalists, bloggers, and random blokes who roasted him on social media- He is eroding religious and social freedoms - He did monetize a lot of state assets turning a short-term profit for the Turkish economy, which is now biting him in the ass, because those assets are now missing from the state's portfolio- He is also using the war in Syria to randomly bomb any Kurd he can find

That man is a f*cking monster, and I will not be bullshitted by your offhandedly coy BS of it all being the western media being retarded. Read a book, son. Or even better: a newspaper.

_________________PS: Ramos should've really gotten a red in that last game we're all talking about.

But why is taking a picture with Erdogan a national controversy while taking a picture with the Emir of a random ME country or a Russian oligarchy member not (and both are common occurrences in the football world)? Seems to me the only difference is that Ozil is of Turkish descent

@BarrileteCosmico wrote:But why is taking a picture with Erdogan a national controversy while taking a picture with the Emir of a random ME country or a Russian oligarchy member not (and both are common occurrences in the football world)? Seems to me the only difference is that Ozil is of Turkish descent

Oh yeah that's racism. Or bigotry, whatever you want to call it. I'm wit the Ö-man on that one. He obviously still shouldn't have done it because it obviously helped Erdogan, but I don't see it as a big deal, and that so much is being made of it, certainly has xenophobic undertones.He's right to point out that Loddar f*cking Matthäus met with Putin, and nobody gave a shit.

_________________PS: Ramos should've really gotten a red in that last game we're all talking about.

@BarrileteCosmico wrote:But why is taking a picture with Erdogan a national controversy while taking a picture with the Emir of a random ME country or a Russian oligarchy member not (and both are common occurrences in the football world)? Seems to me the only difference is that Ozil is of Turkish descent

I might be wrong about this but I think that if these players did it with Putin it would be called into question as well.

Part of it, I think, is that here not as many truly care that much about what's going on in Qatar, or Saudi, or your choice of country in that region. In America this isn't the case, but Erdogan and Turkey on the other hand are very much a hot topic here.

Like it or not Erdogan represents a lot of things that Germany and the EU don't. How do you think it would go down if a player for the US, with Russian ethnicity, took pictures with Putin like that on the run up to such a big event? No doubt there would be media backlash. It's just a dumb thing to do.

It's made worse in the eyes of many people because Ozil is actually Turkish and an icon. His image helps Erdogan. Ozil is responsible for that. He is a public figure and his image carries a ton of weight. He can choose to support whoever he likes and do as he pleases. To act outraged and surprised about the backlash though? Come on. Everyone should have seen it coming. This stuff has obvious consequences, as it should. Ozil isn't you or I.

@BarrileteCosmico wrote:But why is taking a picture with Erdogan a national controversy while taking a picture with the Emir of a random ME country or a Russian oligarchy member not (and both are common occurrences in the football world)? Seems to me the only difference is that Ozil is of Turkish descent

The thing is that this picture didn't just randomly happen but it happened during the turkish election and Erdogan used to campaign a lot in Germany in the past which he can't do anymore. Taking these pictures with Özil and Gündogan helped him circumvent that which is why it wasn't seen as just a meeting with him. (also after the last few years I wouldn't be surprised if Erdogan is now the most hated person by Germans.. Putin probably doesn't come close to that).

Many reasons. I could tell you, but you're trying to bullshit your way along your line of inane reasoning a bit down in your post, so I'm just gonna follow the smell of said bullshit:

Oh, wait, Turkey is changing its policies and orienting itself towards Russia and the east after waiting 50 years for EU membership

Ok first of all, they didn't wait 50 years for EU membership. They weren't remotely interested in EU membership during the years of the military dictatorships, and they weren't interested during many of the regimes that got removed through military coups. They waited a couple of years, during which they were admittedly repeatedly insulted by European conservative politicians, but you really can't join the EU when you erode the separation of church and state and jail thousands of journalists.Thousands.

and Erdogan ordered Russian S-400 instead of American Patriot systems so Western (US controlled) Media has to portray him as the evil now after years of sucking up to him.

That really is not the problem, and you're getting confused now. They ordered S-400s instead of Patriots because they had to suck up to Putin after Erdogan turned the country into an autocracy because Western governments wouldn't back what Erdogan was doing.

Also the media didn't just randomly change tune on Erdogan, when you read about his past, or read interviews with former allies, you can't help but notice the man drastically changed. He started his career in politics as a moderate conservative reformer with liberal economic ideals. This is not how he is now running the country. It's a cleptocracy with a theocratic spin to it. Turks are scared shitless because they're used to liberty and freedom, which they are now rapidly losing if they're not sycophants.

I'm also really tired of the "western controlled media"-BS, the media in the Western World is not homogeneous, and it is not controlled. It's the old autocratic meme of "if we have propaganda, they must too" that people from the former Soviet Union, and other, more recent dictatorships love to believe in to make themselves feel better about their current state of affairs. Have you ever actually engaged with the whole breadth of "Western Media"? If they're controlled by the governments, the governments are doing a shit job. There isn't a single day without "the media" f*cking ripping into the government.

I'm also not willing to be bullshitted into this all being one massive con-job. Neither will most Germans. Two of my best mates have Turkish roots, probably about a quarter of all my friends do. Just because you've read some BS on Infowars or some weird-ass private forum about some grand conspiracy doesn't make it true. The broad strokes of media reporting actually are true.

- Erdogan is cleansing his bureaucracy of dissidents- He is arresting countless journalists, bloggers, and random blokes who roasted him on social media- He is eroding religious and social freedoms - He did monetize a lot of state assets turning a short-term profit for the Turkish economy, which is now biting him in the ass, because those assets are now missing from the state's portfolio- He is also using the war in Syria to randomly bomb any Kurd he can find

That man is a f*cking monster, and I will not be bullshitted by your offhandedly coy BS of it all being the western media being retarded. Read a book, son. Or even better: a newspaper.

On the night when Erdogan first won the elections in Turkey in 2005 I will never forget what my grandfather said. He said: "Turkey is going to become another Iran now." Those who were informed knew what he was about. Yet Erdogan was backed heavily in the West as long as he opened Turkey for foreign investors and sold the country. Right now, not even the Turkish Telecom belongs to Turkey anymore.

It was already in 2008 when the hijab ban in Turkish Universities was annuled. Yet the German (Western/US) press put a positive spin on it. This is why you describe his past as "moderate conservative reformer with liberal economic ideals" because that's the positive spin you were fed from the media. "Yeah, sure, just a bit conservative, but a great reformer at the end of the day who is great for Turkey, let's not criticize too much".

Even imprisoning people was nothing new, a German teenager was imprisoned in 2007 in Turkey for almost a year for flirting with another tourist girl. Yet the press did not attack Erdogan, Turkey in general was criticized for being too harsh. Imagine what the German/Western press would write 10 years later for the same actions, would it even be possible to not have Erdogan's name in all the headlines in such a case as it was in 2007?

The man did not change. The press and the way they report things did. And why did this happen? The answer is obvious.

You may be tired of the "Wester controlled media" narrative but the joke's on you if you think the same narrative in every established media concerning certain topics is just a coincidence. And this has nothing to do with "ripping into the government". But you are wrong on that one anyway (again), no one is ripping into Merkel to this day. Seehofer recently did it and the media is destroying him and the CSU. If BILD ripped into Merkel for real she wouldn't survive 6 months, let alone 16 years. You can only survive letting in 2 million illegal Muslims into your country when the media has your back.

_________________

@Unique wrote:i came home drunk last night and found my wife in bed with a black guy.

Yeah he said fries with some sauce, fritsaus usually is some sort of Mayonaise as a Dutch specialty, but that's the Dutch - noone I know would call 'fries with sauce' a German dish but hey I have no idea what these lumpenproletariat cavemen in the Ruhr area eat for fast food.

Also you have to keep in mind that while Özil as a footballer is a genius and sometimes reaches Messi level for some rare games, he's a complete imbecile, basically a mental amoeba, off the pitch, in real life. He can't speak, he can't think, I'm sure he simply does not know any dishes, and can't name them, when asked.I'm sure fish n chips and paella are literally the only English respectively Spanish dishes he can come up with even after minutes of deliberations, and the "everything" of Turkish food is similar to Sarah Palin reading "all of them" when asked for which newspaper she reads. I'm not exaggerating, Özil is that stupid. If he hadn't played football, he'd probably gotten some job for borderline retarded people, some simple artisanal stuff, organized by some charitable organizatiom, subsidized by the state. Or he'd stand in some shop that sells mobile phone accessories.